County officials concerned about the impacts fracking could have on their finances, communities

ALBANY -- Upstate officials opposed to hydrofracking went to the Capitol Wednesday to complain that approval of the controversial gas drilling industry will be a costly unfunded mandate on rural communities.

They cited the potential added costs for things like road construction and maintenance, water supply systems, and public safety and protection they think would result from a hydrofracking boom. They also cited the potential impact on schools, housing and other areas as a result of sudden population growth and the arrival of mining industry workers. Broader environmental and public health costs remain a question mark, the group's leaders said at a press conference.

"We call on the state to analyze the cost before drilling starts," said Tompkins County Legislature chairwoman Martha Robertson. "Counties need to know what we are getting into and how fracking will impact our budgets."

Robertson said Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office rejected a request for a meeting on the topic despite the fact the governor has met with lobbyists for the Independent Gas and Oil Association and the NYS Petroleum Council.

Advertisement

She said communications between her group, Elected Officials to Protect NY, and the governor's office, the Health Department and the Department of Environmental Conservation "have been frustrating, with a level of secrecy that leaves us doubtful that our substantive concerns have been heard. As the elected partners of state government we would hope for better."

The group claims to have 602 elected officials as members. They released a copy of a Jan. 25 email from Cuomo's office rejecting a request for a meeting with the governor. The group met with DEC Commissioner Joe Martens back in November, but criticized the "empty assurances" about the state's review of the hydrofracking permitting process he offered them in a follow-up letter in January.

Carl Chipman, town supervisor in the Ulster County town of Rochester, said the DEC and Cuomo ignored the potential impact on local communities in the 2011 Ecology & Environment Inc. report on hydrofracking's impact.

"There is no analysis that the governor and DEC can use to decide whether this industry is going to help or hurt New York's communities," Chipman said. "Fracking is a new unfunded mandate on local governments -- God knows, we have enough of them. The DEC's own report said so."

Albany County Legislator Bryan Clenahan expressed doubt about the actual amount of natural gas -- and resulting taxable profits -- wells would be able to produce. "Industry data shows that only 20 percent of wells are actually productive," he said. "So most wells won't even yield profits to tax. It's true that a few people and the corporations will make money, but most of us will clearly lose."

He called the projections of new jobs and tax revenues for communities where drilling will take place "spin and propaganda."